Mercedes plans to build Vance logistics facility

Friday

Mar 22, 2013 at 12:01 AM

TUSCALOOSA | Mercedes-Benz plans to build an automotive parts staging facility in Vance that will employ about 500 people. Site preparation for the 900,000-square-foot facility has begun at Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, the German automaker's plant here.

By Patrick RupinskiBusiness Editor

TUSCALOOSA | Mercedes-Benz plans to build an automotive parts staging facility in Vance that will employ about 500 people. Site preparation for the 900,000-square-foot facility has begun at Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, the German automaker's plant here.Mercedes officials said Thursday that they expect to have the $70-million facility in operation by February 2014.The 500 new jobs there will be in addition to about 1,000 jobs that Mercedes will add soon for production of its C-Class sedans in Vance.Those C-Class-related jobs were previously reported, but Mercedes spokeswoman Felyicia Jerald said Thursday that the company will probably announce within the next few weeks its hiring plans, including how people can apply for those jobs.No decision has been made yet on hiring for the 500 staging facility jobs. Jerald said Mercedes has not decided if it will run the facility or outsource the work to another company.Mercedes currently has just fewer than 3,000 employees at its auto production facility in Vance.Mercedes makes M-Class and GL-Class sports utility vehicles and R-Class crossover vehicles at MBUSI. It already has been training some of its Alabama employees in C-Class production in Germany. Those workers will serve as team leaders in training other workers here in the sedan production starting later this year.The first American-made C-Class sedans that will go to dealerships will go into production next year.“With the C-Class, there will be more parts coming in so we have to look at logistics” of making sure the right sequence of parts get to production, said Martin Schwenk, Mercedes vice president of finance.Jerald said MBUSI has outgrown its staging area for parts and needs the additional space. Mercedes opened its first North American plant in 1997 in Vance to make the M-Class. It later added the R-Class and GL-Class production. Those three models are made only in Vance but are sold in 134 countries, which often have different requirements for vehicles made for their market. This affects the parts going into the vehicles. The C-Class sedans made here will be sold only in North America. But Mercedes also has announced plans to build a fifth, all new and still unnamed SUV in Vance.“With five different vehicles and the storage of parts of them, we need a much larger facility,” Jerald said.Mercedes made its plan public at the Tuscaloosa County Industrial Development Authority's board meeting Thursday afternoon.The board granted Mercedes about $3.87 million in tax abatements for the project. The tax breaks are given to manufacturers that create jobs. The abatements include non-educational sales and use taxes incurred during construction and non-education ad valorem taxes.TCIDA reported that the facility's direct employment will generate more than $310 million in new payroll over the next 20 years.In other action, the TCIDA granted about $510,000 in tax abatements to automotive supplier Borgers USA Corp.Borgers, which has a plant on Brookwood Parkway in Brookwood, is adding a $7.5 million automotive molding line to its facility. The line will allow it to increase production and will result in 15 additional jobs at the plant.The Borgers plant opened in 2004 and initially served just the nearby Mercedes plant, said Andreas Schalk. In 2010, it added more assembly line manufacturing and started serving more customers, including General Motors and Chrysler.